bbrasier

User Profile

I absolutely love the ocean. Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, I was always drawn to the water, the sea life, the smells, and the "feel" of the ocean. I take every opportunity to dive or be around the sea. I have been fortunate to have traveled to more than 40 countries around the world and I love sharing my experiences with others. I love teaching and sharing my passion with other people and seeing them also get excited about the undersea world. I have been a PADI Instructor since 2009 and I am currently working on my Master Instructor rating. I am also a 3rd degree black belt in Combat Hapkido and enjoy teaching self defense martial arts.

I love wreck diving and diving with large animals; mantas, sharks, stingrays, turtles, etc. I am very passionate about what is happening to the shark populations. We are destroying the apex predator because of fear and profit. There were 17 people killed by sharks in 2011 worldwide - and that is tragic, however, we kill over 100 million sharks every year - that is 11,000 sharks every hour of every day! At this rate we will soon destroy the shark population to the point of extinction! This will result in the collapse of the ocean's food chain.

I have also become fascinated by the lionfish on the east coast of the US, Caribbean, and South America. This beautiful, but highly invasive species is destroying the coral reefs and biosphere like nothing we have every seen before. The lionfish have no natural predators and a single female lionfish can spawn over 2 million eggs per year. This species (released by people along the US east coast) will cause a major shift in the natural environment along the east coast.

I believe the more we educate and help people be part of the underwater world the more we can all help support this beautiful and vital resource critical to life on our planet. We can all work to protect the oceans we all love.